It’s possible to imagine a national electoral system which doesn’t require the same binary choice to be applied to every area of government activity. At the moment each constituency returns an MP to parliament who is supposed to represent their constituents in matters of tax, healthcare, transport, social freedom – everything. How closely aligned are voters’ opinions to that MP’s on everything, even those who voted for him? Not very?
The crux of the problem here is that political discourse is being monopolised by big organisations. At a general election each voter is presented not with a choice about what views they want represented but a choice of which party to support.
Hello, Tony.
Let’s say hello to Tony. Actually let’s not. Let’s just imagine Tony. He isn’t keen on paying much tax. He’d much rather pensions and health care and higher education were funded through private means. He also doesn’t much like the idea of government being involved what he does on the internet: he doesn’t want his emails read and his browsing tracked.
When May rolls around Tony is faced with a choice. There isn’t a candidate who espouses a contraction of government spending, and who doesn’t want to track him online. What’s he to do? He has to choose which is most important to him and vote on that basis. His views on foreign policy, on transport, on everything else are completely irrelevant.
Why is it like this? Why can’t Tony pick a candidate who better presents his views? It’s because there are very few candidates: one from each political party. Why are there so few parties? Because that’s how our parliament works. It’s designed for a two party system – one to rule and one to oppose. It’s encoded in the very mechanisms of parliament and supported by the First Past The Post vote counting system.
Each party has a bundle of policies covering many issues – a manifesto. Each voter is required to pick a bundle, to pick a tribe.
How else?
What if we took this apart. Instead of a two party machine why not make parliament a many party machine? Better yet, a no-party machine. What could this look like?
At election time a candidate wouldn’t present themselves as the representative of a party. Rather than would present a personal manifesto – a summary of their opinion on a variety of issues.
Without big political parties and their huge budgets becoming a candidate becomes a feasible action for many more people. The need to compete with national organisations is removed; the need to carry a recognisable brand is removed; the need to spend a fortune on door-to-door campaigning is removed.
So for each constituency there would be a much wider range of options, a much better chance of Tony being able to have a broader set of his views represented. He would be required to join a tribe because there would be no tribes. There would need to be no national brands for political parties.
And then in Westminster…
When these newly non-tribal MPs arrive in Westminster what’s going to happen?
In the currently system one of the parties would form a government and proceed to enact their collective manifesto. Without parties what would happen?
They would form groups in formalised policy areas and activity in these areas would be led by the largest group. An MP might be a member of a lead group concerning civil liberties along with 100 others. The same MP might be a member of a lead group concerning higher education of 100 with no commonality between them.
That would at least cheer Tony up.
Meta politics
These policy area groups need to be managed though. There is no single way to divide government activity neatly into sharply defined categories. The boundaries would be mutable and there would be co-operation and competition, particularly for funding, between them.
How would this be organised and maintained? First, the organisation would need to be slower than the groups themselves lest the organisation become a tool. Perhaps it could be a job for a second chamber?
The single redeeming feature of the current system is that it enables Things To Be Done. With one group firmly in charge there is little to stop them getting on with enacting their policies.
When there’s not a single party running the show how could stalemate be avoided?
One option would be for lead members of each group, elected by members of that group, to form a cabinet. Within this cabinet there might emerge figures which take on a role similar to that currently taken by government ministers.
Inopportune thoughts 